It’s a hundred years since Richard Strauss made his
Volksoper conducting debut with Salome, an anniversary which is being
commemorated with the first new staging in Vienna for almost forty years. Well
not quite so new, as Marguerite Borie’s production has already been seen in Liège
and Monte Carlos, where it garnered mixed reviews. But for a Konzept based on
just the one idea I think it actually works rather well.

The moon, cistern, palace and preschool nativity play
costumes have been conceded as sops to traditionalists, so Borie’s big idea
resides solely in the Personenregie and is mediated through the billowing shawls
– for fun, let’s call them veils – which the entire cast is kitted out with. When
they are removed, and by whom, means
something. Put like that it doesn’t sound too far removed from debagging and I
would advise anybody planning to see this production to avoid Borie’s artless
programme notes (as this production originated in France, she’s making a point
about burqas). Borie is far from her own best advocate and engages with the music
and text in more subtle ways than she lets on. The only obvious unveilings are Salome
of Herod, as he dumbly lets his munificence get the better of him, and Salome’s
at the very end rather than during the dance. Elsewhere, Narraboth’s suicide is
as shocking as usual but a great deal less senseless: there’s some lead-in
begun at an apt point in the score, for which he lies down and gradually lowers
his veil into the cistern, having absorbed the Page’s warnings and realised it’s
too late. There’s yet more symbolism after his death as the body gets covered up
with a voluminous amount of fabric. It’s all seems a bit excessive until Herod
stumbles upon the corpse without it seeming at all contrived. Earlier Narraboth
gets caught up in Jochanaan’s veil as Salome manipulates it, and there’s some neat veil choreography between the Jews and Nazarenes (solid work
here and in Salome’s dance from choreographer Darren Ross). There’s even a
comedy veiling when Jochanaan covers his head in response to Salome obsessing
over his hair. The only character in full possession of her own veil is of
course Herodias, who doesn’t hold much truck with symbolism. As a Konzept it’s nothing
too revelatory or daring, but there are some striking images and the blocking is effective. Reading the
obvious into the unveilings works perfectly coherently and yet there’s just enough
ambiguity to have some fun attaching one’s own (forgive the pun) layers of
meaning.

Musically things weren’t at all bad, and I was seeing the
second cast (I couldn’t make it to any of Annemarie Kremer’s dates but don’t
think I’ve missed out on much; incidentally all the photos show Kremer). Morenike Fadayomi got some good reviews when she sang
the role earlier this year at the Komische Oper, which I’d say were well-earned.
There’s not a huge amount of character to her voice but she knows how to use it
well, shifting around her range with ease and bringing a quiet intensity to the
stiller moments and full, well-supported tone to everything else. She flagged a
bit around the half-way point and sang Silberschlüssel (silver key) a couple of times, but recovered to deliver a chilling ‘Ich will den Kopf des Jochanaan’ and remained in strong voice
through to the end. The other standout performance was Vincent Schirrmacher’s
Narraboth, sung sensitively and freely with lyric, plangent tone. I found
Andreas Conrad’s Herod a bit hoarse, but he sang an unctuous ‘Tanz für mich, Salome’
and cut a credibly pathetic figure once he realised he’d been relieved of his
veil. Sebastian Holecek’s blustery Jochanaan sounded a better in the cistern
than out of it: there was a rounded, deep bellow to his lower register which
echoed well but everything in his upper range was shouted. Irmgard Vilsmaier
was a cutting, plain-spoken Herodias who, quite rightly, avoided sounding like
a hysterical harpy. Supporting roles were all good.

I’m sure Strauss got them in 1911, but this time around the Volksoper didn’t assemble quite the full orchestral forces required. What they had in the pit was however plenty loud enough and barring occasional scrappiness, playing was good with some excellent solos. Conductor Roland Böer gave a fluid account of the score, drawing a richly textured and unblurred response from the orchestra.